


The Beanie

by Ginger Jam (skylite)



Series: The Convergence [2]
Category: Wander Over Yonder
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-29
Updated: 2016-06-29
Packaged: 2018-07-18 23:33:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7335490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skylite/pseuds/Ginger%20Jam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another of Wander's friends gets word he's in trouble and has to find a way to get off his remote vacation world to go help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Beanie

**Author's Note:**

> Wander Over Yonder created by Craig McCracken and owned by Disney. No copyright infringment intended. This story is for entertainment purposes only.

Elsewhere, on another outer edge of the Galaxy:

It was a quiet night, on a quiet planet – way out on the edge of the galactic Spiral. Under three moons, a form snuggled cozily into a sleeping bag, dozing away under a fluffy tree, while various insects sang their night songs and other night creatures hunted or snuggled in for the night themselves.

But the peaceful idyll didn't last. It was gently nuzzled by a tiny sound. Pling! Pling! Pling! But the figure in the sleeping bag slept on, undisturbed. The noise stopped for a few seconds, then returned, just a touch louder. Pling! Pling! Pling! But it was still so soft that the sleeper didn't so much as stir. After a pause, as if the source of the sound was considering its options, it returned again, a bit louder still. Pling! Pling! Pling! Now the sleeper heard! Murmuring, he burrowed deeper into the warmth of the sleeping bag. 

After one more pause, the sound seemed to psych itself up before trying one last time to wake the sleeper: _PLING! PLING! PLING!_

“Huh? Whazzat? I'm up! I'm up!” murmured the sleeper, reaching out for an expected alarm clock. When none met the questing fingers, the hand retracted, ready to let its owner drift back off into dreamland. But no – the source of the sound wasn't having any of that, thank you very much. The sound became louder still: _PLING!! PLING!! PLING!!_

A round white head emerged, blinking sleepily with its single giant eyelid. Reaching up, he rubbed his eye, and cast blearily around for the noise that had interrupted his sleep. A single five-pointed star glowed in the dark in time with the sound: **PLING!!! PLING!!! PLING!!!** It was no easy task to make an urgent alarm klaxon out of the sound of one banjo string strumming, but the star atop Wesley's little black beanie was doing just that with all its might.

THE BEANIE 

“Hello, what's this?” asked the former Watchdog, now fully awake and intrigued by the fact that the beanie hat he wore, a gift from Wander, was acting so strangely. It was created by Wander's hat, but it had never shown signs of the same weird magic that had created it before except for being a conveniently infinite storage space. Wesley reached out to gently pick it up and settle it atop his eyeball.

The banjo-alarm noise stopped at once, though the star continued to glow. The giant, round, red iris that normally centered the front of the Watchdog's head changed shape, taking the same star shape as the one atop his beanie, and the pupil grew large.

Visions flooded into Wesley's mind from the beanie as if it were some sort of receiver. Wander and Hater on Phunulon, acting like best buddies. Wander on yet another funworld, with a little orange and black bot, that seems to be making friends with him. Wander and Sylvia throwing a party aboard the Hatecraft that Hater joins himself? Major Threat and Hater sharing pizza? A huge fight for a candy ring on top of a mountain, eventually won by – a woman Wesley's never laid eyes on before. Hater dancing for her? The Black Cube of darkness giving up evil? Evil sandwich? The woman developing ice powers to go with her already devastating lava powers?! The visions continued for an interminable time, going faster and faster, until they were just scattershot images across the retina of Westley's head. They began showing that green woman with the white hair more frequently, and Wander trying to convince her in his usual friendly way, to stop with the destroying. He wasn't succeeding.

He...was failing to make a friend?!

By the time the visions finally ended and Westley's eye returned painfully to normal, it was obvious what the beanie was trying to tell him. Once the anxiety attack from the visions settled down enough for Westley to catch his breath, he whispered, “Wander needs help.” The little watchdog packed up his sleeping bag and other camp accessories into a space bindle, then tucked it into the beanie. “That Dominator person is destroying everything in her path and heading for the center of the galaxy. But...how do I get to them?” The planet he'd been camping on, he'd chosen for its quiet and distant location so that he could enjoy a peaceful respite before continuing to explore the galaxy. He reached up into the beanie again and rummaged a little until he found his old comlink. It was no longer wired to a frequency the other Watchdogs or the Hatecraft would pick up, but he'd still be able to hear if any space travelers were within a few hundred parsecs...and hopefully hail someone willing to help him out.

“Hello – anybody?” Westley's voice was a little quaky with fear for his friend, but it soon cleared. “Anybody heading for the center of the galaxy? I'm atop the highest peak on the planet at these coordinates...” 

“The center? Are you out of your mind, kid?” demanded a voice. “Nobody's going to the center of the galaxy! Everybody's fleeing!” 

“No way!” said another. “We're outta here!”

"This is an evacuation craft! You would evacuate too if you knew what was good for you!"

So it went for an entire planetary cycle. 

The three moons set. 

The three suns rose. 

The three suns set. 

The three moons rose. 

Westley paced uncomfortably and impatiently. Everyone who had been willing to answer had been equally unwilling to go anywhere near the center of the galaxy for fear of Dominator, her huge spaceship, and her planet-smashing swath of destruction.

“Guess I'm legging it, then,” Westley decided, daunted but determined. He'd known all along that an Orbble was in the realm of possibility, but he'd saved it as a last resort because the center of the galaxy was a long, long, _long_ darn walk.

“I'm heading for the center of the galaxy,” said a sultry voice over his comlink. “I've got your coordinates and I'm on my way.”

Westley thanked the person profusely, first for responding, and then for being willing to brave what no one else seemed to. 

“No problem,” she replied, and gave him a time of arrival.

Westley, exhausted from hours of begging for rides, assured her he'd be waiting, and sat down to wait. Just from the visions and hours of trying to convince someone – anyone – to help him, he was exhausted. It wasn't long before he dropped off to sleep again.

“Hey.”

Westley blinked awake as someone gently shook him. "Hey. You're Westley, right?" His vision, blurry at first, and obscured by the beanie having dropped partially over his pupil, cleared. Before him stood a vision: a female of his own kind. He hadn't seen a girl of his species since Hater had swept his planet for soldiers, and even the baby boys were taken. This one had a green iris and was dressed all in black. She looked more than ready for a fight; swords were strapped to her back and a blaster hung at her hip. She stepped back once Westley was obviously awake, her body language amused and unthreatened. She was definitely the reason there were no she-Watchdogs on the Hatecraft. Commander Peepers had said once, off the record, that girls made Hater nervous. But his fellows had girls back home who they readily admitted would've been a distraction if they'd been allowed on board to work in the food court if they couldn't be watchdogs. If the girls on his homeworld looked anything like Iris, he could see his old friends on the Hatecraft being too distracted to work.

“Well, well,” she said. “Small galaxy indeed. Who knew it was one of my own kind calling.” She chuckled wryly and offered him a hand up.

Westley took it, and introduced himself. “Thanks for coming for me. I'm Westley.”

“Iris,” replied the woman, long lashes going half mast as she sized him up. “You're a little short for a Watchdog,” she declared after a moment. 

Westley wasn't wearing the uniform anymore, but somehow she still knew. He drew himself up to his full height, stung. He still only came just past her waist. “I was a Watchdog for a while!” he insisted. “I just decided that conquering planets wasn't worth it.”

“And hanging out on remote planets is?” 

“This was meant to be a break,” he explained as she led him back to her craft. “But a friend of mine is in trouble.” His eye widened in curiosity and he fell silent, realizing what it meant that she was willing to give him a ride to the center of the galaxy.

“Yes,” Iris sighed with the sort of annoyance that still sounded cute. “I have someone there who needs me just as you do. My little brother. So let's go pull their fat outta the grop-flarbin' fire, shall we?”

“Yes ma'am!” Westley said, snapping to attention. 

Iris watched him spring to life, run his chubby self up the ramp, and find a seat to strap into near a window. 

_Perhaps this little guy might be worth having stopped for after all_ , she thought.

Westley, once strapped in, said he knew where there were an arsenal of weapons they might want to raid before they went for the center of the Galaxy. “It was there last I checked despite several different groups trying to destroy it.” If Lord Hater minded Westley stopping by to help himself to weapons, he'd blast that bridge when he came to it.

Westley could hear the predatory grin in Iris' voice when she said, “Westley, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” 

She set the launch sequence. Westley beamed her the coordinates to the Hater arsenal, and in seconds, they were off the remote world and course set. Atop Westley's head, the beanie's star, finally content it had managed to get Wander some assistance, stopped glowing.


End file.
